Touched By The Son

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Give 'em enough Europa

As the place of origin of many of our industrious immigrants, it is of more than passing interest to look at the next smallest continent, Europe. The divisions between Asia and Europe occur at the Ural Mountains, Ural River and Caspian Sea in the east, the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea with its outlets, Bosporus and Dardanelles in the south. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey are considered part of both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus, which are entirely in Western Asia, are sociopolitically European countries. Some scholars speak of a combined continent, Eurasia, as the land mass is not separated by ocean.
Europe is the ancestral home of at least six branches of my family tree.

Weight in the lobby

Lobby groups may be obstructionist and hopelessly at loggerheads, but they are a crucial part of any good democracy. It helps for an organisation to have pooled all its time and resources into one issue, no matter how offbeat or inane.

This is both the strength of the Greens and their weakness. There is broad agreement for their cause, even causes, but this does not translate to larger numbers of first preference votes.

And the kind of organisation that represents pedestrians or public transport advocates has a full-time putting forward their position. They need no greater power than the sympathetic ear of a sitting member.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Aughts well that ends well

About Me

For minutiae around the globe
Us guys who must look good in robes
Debunking debacles with official probes
Elicting eyeballs chewing lobes
Legends legion and homespun
You can see
We're touched by the son